Clucking in the social media coop

Dear Reader – Allow me to ask you a question so I can learn from your perspective. Thanks!   First, let me tell you what initiated the question.

According to Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” –

• the ego “Justifys, attacks, blames, defends its position…“
• “the ego will play a role to get what it needs- “material gain, a sense of power, superiority or specialness, or some kind of gratification be it physical or psychological.”
• “there is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right.”
• “Awareness and ego cannot co-exist”
• “the truth, in any case, needs no defense. The light or sound does not care about what you or anybody else thinks.You are defending yourself…”

I would say I agree with those ideas, how ’bout you? Now, look at Social media. Yes, even including MY own blog, as well as everyone’s Facebook, Twitter, etc….

Scroll thru any Social Media and you’ll hear millions of chickens clucking. I am one of them, I can admit that.

So, when is clucking like a chicken warranted? You have learned, or created something (like a chicken that clucks when it lays an egg) and you want to share it. You build a platform so you can get YOUR learned message out there. Some people will learn from it. Most will only hear more clucking.

My Question – Is building a platform for any message just an EGO building exercise as a person shouts what they think is right?

I’ve learned a lot from others. I’m glad they shouted, wrote a book, gave a lecture, created a blog, a bible, a mandate, philosophy, or dharma . Their platform’s message helped me live a fuller life.  How can that be just a negative Ego practice of communicating what They Believe is right?

• Like a state fair, every chicken has something to offer that is different from the other chickens. What’s wrong with letting the differences show, or being presented?  Like my website or yours?  Is that only Ego gratification?
• Oprah built a platform. Eckhart built one too. They both have books and shows and even talk about each other.  Millions have lived richer lives because of both.

Yet, what kind of platform does the (ego-less) light, or sound or flower need?

 

The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle

One word summary for the book- “Consciousness“.

To be honest, it was a toss-up for the one word summary. The other option was “Heavy”.  This was my second or third time through the book in an attempt to grasp more of it. I had started about two years ago, and couldn’t wrap my awareness around some of it, so the book collected some dust. I tried again last month and finally, success in getting through it with a moderate understanding and feeling in resonance of it. (But that only demonstrates where I am in relation to his ideas, you are in a different place on the path, of course.)

Tolle covers all the topics that most of us want to understand a little more. Fear is really only a construct of the past or future.  The Ego plays tricks on you into thought processes that do not support your NOW moment.  The illusionary sense of your thoughts and thinking. Most of all, he discusses how to live with an inner-awareness, that is deeper than what we’ve become trained to see.

The emergence of our higher self is the key to enjoying and living in the NOW. We must give up the notion that we are the one doing or watching something. We are the essence of consciousness that is watching the watching or doing. (Heavy, I know.) Your level of happiness rests only on your level of awareness.  Who is in between the thoughts that is rushing around in your brain?  The idea reminded me of some Buddhist teachings about Illusion and releasing of Self and Mindfulness.

Ironically, I think it because of his negative surroundings while growing up, that Tolle’s focus on a “Pain Body” exists in his writing. I definitely picked up a heavy residual experience there, which I had a difficult time connecting to. Maybe I’ll “feel” it the next time I re-read the book.

Some real “Enlightments” that really lit up my own path were:

• “People carry too much residual resistance, too much fear, too much attachment to sensory experience, too much identification with the manifested world.”
• “Your primary task is not to seek salvation through creating a better world, but to awaken out of identification with form.”
• on death – “it’s only tragic because you projected a separate self where there was none. You got hold of a fraction of a dynamic process, a molecular dance, and mad a separate entity out of it.”
• “It is through the world and ultimately through you that the Unmanifested knows itself. You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold.”

The Power of NOW is an incredibly empowering and “self”-evaluating book. It’s always great to read and learn and interupt the processes that you currently have in your life, and then try a few new ones. Tolle offers plenty of ideas that may help release “perceptions” that are holding you down in fear and attachment to impermanent conditions that your mind shows you. You are not your personal history, you are deeper than that.

In Tolle’s own words, “Let me show you how to go more deeply into what you already have.”     I believe he does a great job of this, and I definitely appreciate his insights. The book is definitely recommended for anyone seeking a calmer, deeper sense of who you are.